The treatment of open wounds has long been a difficult area of medical practice. Closure of an open wound requires inward migration of surrounding tissue. Some wounds, however, are sufficiently large or infected that they are difficult to heal spontaneously. In such instances, the flow of blood to the epithelial and subcutaneous tissue may be restricted such that an edema—swelling of the body's tissues—forms near the surface of the wound. In the absence of sufficient blood flow, the wound is often unable to successfully fight infection and is unable to close.
Additionally, a wound may include dead tissue that remains attached to the wound, thereby preventing proper wound closure.
In certain circumstances, wounds are treated with a vacuum-assisted wound closure system that allows the wounds to heal more rapidly. Debridement of a wound—the surgical, chemical, mechanical, or autolytic (using the body's own processes) removal of wound tissue to promote healing—is typically performed prior to the use of a vacuum-assisted wound closure system in order to advance the process of cleaning dead and contaminated material from the wound. Nevertheless, because of a number of considerations, debridement is not always properly performed prior to the use of a vacuum-assisted wound closure system. Using the vacuum-assisted wound closure system in the absence of preceding optimal debridement may obtain sub-optimal results.
In one specific circumstance of negative side-effects obtained by lack of debridement, the dead tissue around a wound may promote ischemia of the live tissue still within the wound area. In certain situations, the ischemia may lead to progressive deterioration of wounds.
Such a phenomena may occur with partial thickness wounds. A partial thickness wound may include cell death that does not extend below the deepest epidermal structures. The ability to control or diminish the depth of wounds greatly enhances the prognosis for wound patients. Furthermore, this ability decreases morbidity resulting from such wounds.
Partial thickness wounds are formed from a zone of coagulation. The zone of coagulation may encompass tissue killed by the injury that caused the wound. The partial thickness wounds may also incorporate a zone of stasis. The zone of stasis is a layer of tissue immediately beneath the zone of coagulation.
While cells within the zone of stasis are viable, nevertheless, the blood flow is static because of collapse of surrounding and intrinsic vascular structures. Localized edema may play a part in such a collapse of local vascular structures. One important factor in maintaining the viability of the cells located in the zone of stasis is re-establishing blood flow within the zone of stasis soon after injury. Accordingly, it is further desirable to provide a technique for treating wounds by enhancing blood circulation to the wounded tissue to inhibit wound penetration.
It therefore also becomes desirable to provide an apparatus and method that may be adapted to advance the use of a vacuum-assisted wound closure system that simplifies and assures that proper debridement takes place prior to the use of the vacuum.